For Posterity’s Sake: Poetry & Wine

And lest you think that we were being all hoity-toity and elegant, let me specific: this was wine-tasting AND poetry!

To be specific, the extremely haughty instructions we issued were as follows:

Brush off your linguistic skills with a tasting of words and wine,

and come wax poetical

over the sweet juice of The Berry.

For every wine,

be prepared to write a line of description

(preferably lyrical, naturally,)

and with our combined efforts each wine

will have its own poem by the end of the night.

And just to whet your appetite,

have a taste of Sebastian’s descriptions of wine!

” ‘ . . . It is like a little, shy wine like a gazelle.’‘Like a leprechaun.’‘Dappled, in a tapestry meadow.’‘Like a flute by still water.’‘ . . . and this is wise old wine.’‘A prophet in a cave.’‘ . . . and this is a necklace of pearls on a white neck.’‘Like a swan.’‘Like the last unicorn.’”

The results were . . . . . shall we say . . . . hilarious?

The level of ridiculous and outright crazy that can be achieved by grad student about to embark into Finals Week remain unsurpassed.

It takes absurdity to an art form.

And it must be preserved. At all costs, this night of brilliance must be recorded for the generations to come!

They begin quite prettily, but quickly descend into violence, grammar abuse, and mixed metaphors, and bestrewn with many references to animals and pocket watches.

Therefore, behold the fruits!

Please – please! – share your reactions, chortles, favorite lines, memories of that night, and general criticism according to your prefered school of literary theory.

(And, should you wish to more closely examine the written record, to psychoanalyst the handwriting, or trace the progression of ideas and wine-intake, click the headings of each “poem” to be taken to the pdf files.)

An Autumn mist soft enough to induce . . .Dreams of summer, peach and pumpkin in a truce,In a musky, brilliant friendship born of loveComes an unwanted child of the rine,Mediocre and gulpable, from California,Liquid Light streamed from aboveLike swarms of clustering bees that issue forever in fresh burstsFrom the hollow in the stone and hang like bunched grapes as theyHover beneath the flowers in the spring thereOr rainwater in the red wheel barrow, after the chickensHave given up and left, and sunlight suspends undreamtdaydreams over that slumbering abstract of the sky,or, the fallen leaves, slowly rotting out their lives upon the floorOf an aging forest, whose death will mulch the trees into lofty splendor.

Sweet and forgetful, slightly uneventful,But also like a smack,a smack in the head,in the head with an oak,an oaken board.Young turtles rustling through last year’sundergrowth – the loamy, sun-warmed soil,far from farmer’s careful toil, lies fallow,Forgetting grain and men, and all but sleep(And the slow step of turtle feet.)Death, death to the enemies of Bogle – hear, hear!(here, here?) where?? –To Melville, Joyce, Woolf and Gogol.Brimming with bitternessBursting with boozeand blackberry breathUnder the heavy boughs and among the dusty rootsThrough the time – brittled leaves, a small people make their way in a large world.A difficult world, they can’t reach the door-handles, and catsare enormous and trample mountains in their quest for elephantine mice.Like cranes winging their way to the Gray Havensto escape the winter snowsAnd Frodo, sad Frodo, grips the ship’s bowAnd glimpses spring.

O’ thou First Wine of Cana,Ending not with a growl but a mumble.Sharply smooth with a touch of spice, ending smartIs just as nice.Reposing on a silken cushion,This genie wine grants your every wishing.

But – be kind to your wine – treat it well,Lest the devil of bad taste chase you to hell.For it pinches with a pepperine pincer.Buttery soft, with sharpness of spice,New deerskin leather and this wine are both nice.O SWEET ARABIAN SPICEO whiskered kitten snoozing in the cherry treeLick, suck the fruit until your whiskers are thoroughly splattered.I’m having a parley, with Bob Marley, thanks to this Gnarly.Live when from the thunderous sea the surf-beatcrashes upon the great beach and the whole sea isin tumult.

This wine needs no friends.It contents itself, keeping company with good books.There, alone, but without lonelinessIt rests, communing, with the rest,Nourishing souls on the blest of the Blest,Which is wit, talk, words dry on the surface, yet cutting deep into the soul.Soul to break into the nooksThe silly dwelling of sips and stews, wit and words,But free to fly and taking wing, I’m hoping of its release,Or of a friend, a good one, and quiet, the old hound by the heaped-up fire,The worn stool, and winter afternoon, graced by the windowsill cat.Like the multitudinous nations of swarming insectsWho delve hither and thither about the stalls of the sheepfoldIn the season of Spring when the milk splashes in the milk pails.And Don Coyote feasts upon the unobservant chicken.

Goose down on a soft spring breezeWould strike with more weight.The dreams of a sleeping goose would notGrow a civilization with ease.Fruit roll-up, all grown up? Oh, consummationdevoutly to be wished!I have nothing to say about this. – Then stop her lips with a kiss.But not if she’s your ‘sis.Unless, of course, this is Star Wars.Like some ox of the herd pre-eminent among the others,a bull, who stands conspicuous in the huddling cattle.My heart is a pocket watch!

A delicious acidy grape concoction.The “I sunk your battleship” of fin winesAnd the “hot potato” of game action.“Tastes like nail polish” is an unexpected reaction.One hopes for more from the land of the godsThan acetone. Then slip this travesty upon the clods of dirt.A hurt, a flirt, a blinding squirtFlight of feathers and on and on:Ernie wouldn’t give this wine to Bert.Like a four-house team careering down the plain,All breaking as one with the whiplash cracking smartly,Leaping with hooves high to run the course in no time.Their spirit creaks and crumbles the coursing chariot,And as they thrust free from the straining lash,The charioteer crashes to earth, and drinks deeplyof dirt’s sorrows and joys.Carpenter:Euclidean abstraction tingles between his touchAnd the unhewn wood: strong hands, rough withThe lessons of violent elegance, coax a curve from parallels.

Stretch your nose into the musty corners of a castleAnd smell the ancient dust, wed to stone through lengthy habit.It is cool and gray upon the noseBut plunge in, live a while, and a fire crackles at your toes.Now, freak out, because some old cat lady thinks she’sa witch holding you in her “castle” [abandoned factory].And her cats think you are a [horribly generic] mouse. [quotidian?]For this is the fancy ketchup of the vine.Recall the chalk under the hooves of the White Horse,Ground into a fine mist much finer than thisBut not tasting much different (ly).Like a lion who leaves the farmyard when he is exhaustedAttacking the dogs and men who do not allow him tocarry off the fattest of the cattle, staying awake allnight, craving meat, he keeps attacking butaccomplishes nothing like a little bitch.But then there is chocolate. Chocolate makes everythingbetter. Thou halt not covet they neighbor’s lion, nor hisass, nor his wind chimes tingling at midnight.Turtles!

Like grassy fields. With a hint of mitesDry as valley bones,might like this with a scone.If grapes’ secret nature were cherries,Thus wine would be the james Bond of Vin’ries.Shall these bones love? Shall these bones – –(Moses said, resignedly, “no”,)No, but they taste good with fava beansOn the 8th of May, when last light gleams,Like herd stampeding, driven mad as the darting gadflyStrikes in the late Spring when they long days come around,This wine bottle is fatter that its dessertwould seem to merit.But . . . it is beautiful.

A shallow secretary with pink fingernail,Whose mind of peanuts often failsHwaet! Beowulf drank mead, and if you careFor the Renaissance faire, you can drink “mead” thatTastes like this (though the Anglo-Saxons would uproot their hair).What could go with such a brew?Perhaps a Whataburger number two.Like Children’s cough syrup, like a melted popsicle . . . Naughty sweet lip gloss.Some philosophy students say “This wine needs to be chilled.”Sometimes I think philosophy students need more wine to chill.But such philosophies are stilted, stiff.This wine’s a nymph, a draft from a deep well –The crisp curl in the secretary’s hair. (She’s a nymphBy moonlight, or when she’s in the well. Which isn’t often;An amanuensis can’t afford such watery hijinks. When sheknows how to spell.)

A little dry reminds me of a small townand teenage drama:Overrun with monkeys with punching habits and hair trauma.Orpheus himself is bested and Pan undone.Togas, laurels and greasy shutters, tan, shone.Now for something completely different, this oneIs refreshing and tart, but not distributing swords,Save the status quo of monarchy, carry on with the words,There’s nothing wrong with the middle of the road,Jut shift your gear into the correct mode,Let the median flavor wash over your taste,And eschew all patience in favor of haste.Then the fat carp, drifting in the summer streamWill swallow the murky light like wine, and dreamof an unsalted ocean.Like some lion at bay, dreading the gangsOf hunters closing their cunning ring around him.knowing full well that April is the cruelest month breedingdeepest works of cormorants divorcing time.O,o,o, this Penfold Rawson’s wineIt’s not elegant or intelligent . . . .

Sunshine and sand fill the flip-flopsFlip flip screw-upBeat box, gel pops.Makes me want to pill popLike an expert singer, skilled at lyre and song – who strains astring to a new page with ease, making the sheep-gut fast at either endAnd plucks a note straight form the heart of ancient pine,dark and tremulous, like a flock of aging cicadas;a song for common times, tamed to the familiar pageantof the town square revelry – haunted, still, with the unspoken memoryof dragons.Fear! Fire! Foe!But no.Awake, embrace, breath againFor ’twas but nightmare painYou Cretan holiday may continue apacein the dawn of love and light.I’m on a warm, deserted beach, and Snuffuluffagus is singing quietly.

Srgt. Pepper with a sweet-heart, no longer lonely.To see beyond into truths unseen.Black psychedelia sweeps aside the curtain.A little flock of truffle-hunting boars,conspiring and subtle, pirouette overthe autumnal forest floor.Why? – Because Srgt. Pepper is oh so lonely.Live when the west wind moves across the grain deepstanding, boisterously, and shakes and sweeps it tillthe tassels lean.From this barley, comes this wine. Irony? oh andso much more.Hills that have never been hills but on the tongue,less than this, they are nothing: thus arguedthey grasp dreams and roll happily through your mouth.Know thyselfγνώθι σαυτόν Don Oboe Glee Feathers!!!!!!!

And as a special treat, I give you the grand finale, the piece de le resistance! This was found floating about the dining room once all guests had taken their leave. Hear the beautiful cadence and potential in these lines . . . and watch it all fall apart.

The PoemI am a flitting wrenOn the lighthouse of unlikelyDesire. No elephants come here,Or splendid, lightning wrought tendrils of orange flavored sky. We’ll carvethe thick air like ice blocks, andspangle the sky with pocket watches(like a watcher waits for morning) afterTime has stopped.

That rather depends on where in Texas. From where I live to the nearest edge of Texas is around eight hours by car.
The real problem is that… I have no appreciation for alcohol. I know this may horrify you. 😉 My dislike of the taste of alcohol makes me the black sheep of my family. My brother keeps trying to teach me to drink scotch, and I keep trying to learn to drink wine, but no such luck yet.

Post navigation

Delve The Deeps

Search

Featured Quote

"We are much too much inclined in these days to divide people into permanent categories, forgetting that a category only exists for its special purpose and must be forgotten as soon as that purpose is served."
~Dorothy Sayers, Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society